I spent five years at Forbes writing about business and leadership, attracting nearly one million unique visitors to Forbes.com each month. While here, I assistant edited the annual World’s 100 Most Powerful Women package and helped launch and grow ForbesWoman.com. I've appeared on CBS, CNBC, MSNBC and E Entertainment and speak often at conferences and events on women's leadership topics. I graduated summa cum laude from New York University with degrees in journalism and sociology and was honored with a best in business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) in 2012. My work has appeared in Businessweek, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Aesthete and Acura Style. I live in New York City with my husband and can be found on Twitter @Jenna_Goudreau, Facebook, and Google+.

Back To the Stone Age? New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Bans Working From Home

New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has decreed there will be no more working from home for Yahoo staff. A company memo leaked to the press on Friday announced that Yahoo employees would no longer be permitted to work remotely. The decision seems to be based on a desire for increased productivity and a more connected company culture. It reads in part:

To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.

Hundreds of remote workers were asked to report to the office beginning June 1. If they can’t or don’t want to, too bad. Even occasional flexibility is being discouraged. The memo reads, “For the rest of us who occasionally have to stay home for the cable guy, please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration.”

Unsurprisingly, the announcement rankled quite a few Yahoo employees, as well as supporters of workplace flexibility. Flexible work arrangements, from telecommuting to flexible schedules and condensed workweeks, are viewed by many as the way of the future. Flexibility has become an important tool for time-crunched workers, particularly parents, to better juggle work and family responsibilities.

“It’s incredibly disappointing,” says Jennifer Owens, editorial director of Working Mother Media. “It’s a step backwards—a mindset from the days when Yahoo was launched.”

“I respect that Marissa is looking at ways to make [Yahoo's] workforce more productive and engaged in their jobs,” says Sara Sutton Fell, CEO of FlexJobs, a service that helps job seekers find flexible professional positions. “I just don’t agree that casting a blanket of blame on individual telecommuters is the right way to do it–nor is cancelling the whole program in one fell swoop.”

Mayer, 37, took the helm of struggling Yahoo last summer while five months pregnant. The new mom is the youngest CEO and one of only a handful of women CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies. When asked for details about the new policy and the rationale behind it, a Yahoo spokesperson wrote back, “We don’t comment on internal matters.”

Update: A Yahoo spokesperson sent the following statement on Tuesday, “This isn’t a broad industry view on working from home–this is about what’s right for Yahoo, right now.”

Mayer has so far taken a number of steps to turn the company around—revamping the homepage, renovating Yahoo Mail, releasing a new Flickr app and conducting a string of mobile acquisitions. Presumably she believes having all soldiers report for duty onsite will lead to increased performance. However, the idea that traditional face-time results in increased productivity seems little more than management bias.

“A variety of studies show that telecommuting and working from home is associated with higher productivity,” says David Lewin, management professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Analytically, it’s not at all clear this would benefit Yahoo. They could wind up with negative performance effects.”

Additionally, working from home—whether occasionally or full time—typically cuts out an hour or more of wasted commuting time every day, says Lewin. Not to mention, employees are so grateful for the flexibility that they’re often more loyal to the company than the 9-to-5ers. A 2011 study by nonprofit human resources association WorldatWork found that companies with stronger cultures of flexibility experienced lower turnover and increased employee satisfaction, motivation and engagement.

“It comes from fear,” says Owens. “Fear that if I can’t see you, I don’t know what you’re working on. It’s a distrust of your own workforce.”

Some are also speculating that Mayer’s little ultimatum may be a way to trim the fat. If remote workers decide to quit rather than comply, it’s a layoff without the associated costs. However, what could be a clever cost-cutting trick sends a dangerous message to the rest of the business community. Could this be the beginning of the end of telecommuting?

“I don’t believe we’ll see many other companies following suit,” says Amanda Augustine, job search expert for TheLadders, an online job-matching service for professionals. “This decision says more about the type of company (and culture) Mayer is planning to rebuild, and less about the state of telecommuting and flexible work schedules as a whole.”

Of course, some face-time will always be necessary and no one’s arguing that it disappear entirely. David Fagiano, COO of corporate training and consulting company Dale Carnegie Training, agrees with Mayer that some of the best ideas are fostered through casual conversations. However, he also notes that these conversations don’t have to take place in the same room. “With the internet being such a great tool in business today, it’s easy to hold a virtual meeting via Skype or to pick up the phone.”

With increasingly effective mobile and video conferencing technology there’s less and less need to be present in the physical workplace. Certainly, Yahoo could find alternatives to alienating hundreds of workers. Isn’t it a technology company?

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I don’t know why this would surprise anyone. With most companies still using fax machines it proves that American corporations are outdated and not ready to use the technology available. We have the abilities to work from cell phones on the beach and to be just as productive but we continue to beat our heads against the wall using the same outdated practices expecting different results. In most cases its because of pale stale and male bosses that are still around from the sixties but this proves that it goes beyond that. Yahoo is a dead company anyway. Its just a matter of time before they either reduce to just an email company or sell their email division and disappear entirely.

Based on my previous experience, working from home is a luxury that, while nice, isn’t necessarily the norm. It also seems, based on Yahoo’s recent performance, a perk that isn’t warranted. Right the ship, then worry about perks and privileges. I know I am in the minority here, but this move will pay off in productivity from Yahoo staff moving forward.

At least there is ONE person in the mainstream media who can see Mel is quietly laying off Yoohoos with this move. Of course people spread out all over the planet can’t show up to the landfill by the bay. But the question is, will a Gloria Allred sue her and Yahoo! for Familial discrimination over her building a private nursery while de-accomodating other Yahoo! Mothers?

Marissa congratulations now VERBAL interaction to make Yahoo greater all these work at home only read e-mails they need to be supervised, consultants are good pay per contract and deadline so has my Architectural practice over 15 years been great. Yahoo is finally getting control for success.

Jenna- Personally, I think Ms. Mayer may have created a short term solution but built herself a long term monster. Here you have a technology company with the CEO saying problems can’t be solved unless they’re solved face-to-face or new ideas can’t be created unless you’re in the physical presence of your co-worker. I’m not high-tech and I talk to my daughter who lives nearly 1,800 miles from me via Skype. If I can accomplish that, surely Yahoo can come up with something to allow their employees to continue their work flexibility and still achieve desired corporate goals. Unless Ms. Mayer’s objective is to reduce personnel cost and she isn’t being forthright with her actual purpose. If you don’t have happy, satisfied employees then get ready for bigger problems to surface down the road. Your employees are the biggest asset you have and you better treat them right. The women in this organization have a right to be very concerned given childcare andfamily responsibilities. Men are going to have to step it up a few notches. Ms. Mayer certainly isn’t thinking or helping, in my opinion, her gender by this mandate and Yahoo is certainly taking a big step backward in my eyes. This is the 21st century…things have changed…let’s be progressive and find a way to allow these employees to do their jobs in the most effective and efficient way possible. And, if that’s from home and they do excellent work, Ms. Mayer should be delighted…she isn’t losing them to commute time…they probably work harder in a friendly environment and they don’t have all the office distractions. I think every so often they should be required to come to the office and update their superior but that shouldn’t detract from the job structure. An interesting article!

Marissa is right to have them go back to the office. I worked for years at home in technology. People need more then looking at somebody on a computer screen. People need to have the physical present with their peers and managers. Plus Marissa is all about accountability and getting more out of her staff. Great decision Marissa.

It’s pretty obvious the way things are heading. Just check out this infographic – http://blog.hubstaff.com/virtual-team-management-trends/

That being said, i guess she’s entitled to do whatever it is that she believes is right. Maybe this is more about downsizing, regaining control, etc… than it is about truly caring where someone is working from?

It is true that some employees doing some types of work are more productive working at home. I know some people who contract for IBM and work from home. Thing is when they talk about their job it seems like pretty formulaic widget production type tasks. However, if Yahoo wants to be innovative the research shows that the in person workplace lends itself better to actual innovative or creative work. If you look at jobs that require real creativity those employees tend to actually report to work. Google for example, has very limited telecommuting positions and remember Google is where Mayer came from. The trade off is that Google has daycare, dry cleaning, cafeteria etc. on their campus so there are multiple pieces to the puzzle.

Many people here forget that Yahoo is a company with a public face. It does not rely simply on employee morale but what its customers (or product in FB parlance) think. There are so many options for news feeds and entertainment and email that are not Yahoo that this kind of sniping does not help.

For those who think that employees are such lying delinquents that they must be chained to a desk lest they not give the corporation its pint of blood each day, do you know that 40% of IBMers work remotely?

How is it possible that Yahoo does not know what kind of work each individual does? Do managers provide annual reviews and are those just made up? Who knows, maybe Yahoo is saying it does not want employees with families and other obligations. It only wants young, single, cheap people who want to come to the office to chatter away endlessly.